Self-diagnostic high-density silicon microprobe arrays fabricated by the corner compensated anisotropic etching of (110) silicon wafers

Abstract

In this paper, we present a novel structure and fabrication methods of the self-diagnostic silicon microprobe arrays for applications to the on-line inspection of high-density electronic devices. The microprobe array consists of 101 probes fabricated by the anisotropic etching of (110) silicon wafers. Each silicon microprobe of 160 mu m wide, 400 mu m thick and 11 mm long contains a 20 mu m high-electroplated hemispheric gold probe-tip on the Ti/Au signal line as well as a Ti/Au self-diagnostic structure for microprobe breakage detection. We have measured the total contact force and resistance of the 101 microprobes required to probe ITO electrode. For the contact force greater than of 200 g(f), the total resistance of 101 microprobes converges to 390 Omega. The minimum force of 1.98 g(f) is required for each microprobe to achieve stable electrical contact. We experimentally demonstrated the electrode-wise probing function and self-diagnostic capability of the fabricated microprobe array for applications to the on-line inspection of the electronics devices having 101 electrodes per inch. (C) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.